To clarify my OTA statement, we receive our tv audio and video OTA (Over the Air, antenna) using the internal ATSC tuner. The tv speakers are off so the video is displayed on the tv and the audio is sent to the receiver via the optical cable. If you use your internal ATSC tuner, or if you tv has SmartApps, this is the way to do it. Everything else, in our case, is connected to the receiver via HDMI so only video is sent to the tv and all audio is played thru the receiver.

OK thanks! If I stream netflix with my Blu-Ray player would it audio/video work via HDMI?

Yes. It would work just like playing a Blu-ray Disc. HDMI to the soundbar. The bar processes the audio and feeds video to the TV. If you don't have SmartTV apps or use an off air antenna and are feeding all sources through the soundbar, there's no use for the optical cable from the TV to the soundbar.

You guys rock! Streaming netflix via my Blu-Ray works perfect. Now I m just ready to get my system beefed up abit more but with a baby on the way in about 20 days my wife says Home theater is on the back burner hahah. I have other questions regarding Blu-Ray is it ok to just ask on this post? While I have your attention?

You guys rock! Streaming netflix via my Blu-Ray works perfect. Now I m just ready to get my system beefed up abit more but with a baby on the way in about 20 days my wife says Home theater is on the back burner hahah. I have other questions regarding Blu-Ray is it ok to just ask on this post? While I have your attention?

BLU-RAY settings.

24p was selected as off. Should this be on?

Should I adjust any down mixing settings?

Same with DTS NEO6

And should I select PCM

I have them all at factory settings now.

I have that soundbar, so I can answer your questions:

1. Set 24p to "ON".
2. No need to adjust downmix...the soundbar handles bitstreamed multi-channel audio just fine.
3. DTS Neo6 sounds better, IMHO, with large speakers so leave that off.
4. See item 2 above. No need to use PCM.

What player do you have?
Downmix handles the reduction of multichannel content to stereo by the player, so it doesn't matter in your setup.
DTS Neo:6 handles expansion of stereo content to multichannel, which also doesn't apply in your case.
I would not use PCM with your sound bar. But the correct setting there depends on the particular player you have.
24p depends on your TV.

When you set the output to bitstream, none of the other settings matter. The only exception is secondary audio, which needs to be off so that the player sends the lossless TrueHD and DTS Master Audio versions of the soundtracks instead of the lower resolution lossy versions.

All of those other settings operate on PCM. But, when set to bitstream, the player simply sends the encoded track to the soundbar, which does the decoding to produce PCM and any subsequent processing such downmixing and dialog enhancements.

Advanced Auto Volume. The manual describes it as a way to reduce the volume differences when switching between sources. Can't imagine why it would improve the sound ten fold. But, if it sounds better to you, then, yes leave it on.

To my knowlege there are no brands of panels that will pass 5.1 thru the optical output on the panel with a device hooked to the panel via HDMI and that goes for all TV's, even the ones made in the last 2 years.

My new 70" and 80" Sharps wouldnt pass 5.1

May I ask how you "confirmed" that the brands you mentioned will pass 5.1 thru the optical ?

Cheers
Davyo

My Sharp lc70le757u will pass DD 5.1. I confirmed this through my new sonos system. On the controller you can see what signal the Playbar is receiving. That being said, It will pass DD 5.1 as long as the original device signal is DD 5.1.

My Sharp lc70le757u will pass DD 5.1. I confirmed this through my new sonos system. On the controller you can see what signal the Playbar is receiving. That being said, It will pass DD 5.1 as long as the original device signal is DD 5.1.

I do not currently have the surrounds up and running ( or own them yet) as I just bought my Playbar and sub this past Sunday. I too had concerns about the TV passing the signal down to the Playbar so I didn't want to invest in them if there was only going to be a mediocre gain without DD 5.1.

I can sincerely state that there is a noticeable difference in the DD5.1 over the Stereo/pcm sound coming from the soundbar. It does have a distinguished sound field and replicates the sound quite well. This will only be enhanced by the addition of the surrounds.

Some tv's do in fact pass discrete 5.1 from either the internal ATSC tuner ( my tv does as an example for OTA) and some SmartApps via optical cable. If you use an external source that is not always the case. I don't know what your sources are. Pseudo-surround sound can sound very nice on higher end soundbars, which the Sonos is. All I'm suggesting is that even tho the display indicates that it's receiving a discrete 5.1 stream it may not be able to separate those tracks and push them to their respective speakers. The Sonos should be able to do that because you can add more speakers but maybe another Sonos owner who's invested in the speakers can confirm that.

What would be my connection options ? HTPC direct to soundbar and HDMI out to TV or HTPC to TV and out via ARC to Soundbar.

Would anything over a 2.1 soundbar be wasted ? Looking at the LG NB4540 (choices are limited here in SEA/Malaysia). The LG is approx USD400 here. Was looking at the Philips HTL 5120 previously but it's no longer selling. The more expensive HTL 9100 is though @ USD900 or so.
Would a more expensive Sony ST3 soundbar (which supports DTS MA and true HD) be overkill ? it is 4.1 anyway. The ST3 is approx USD600.

Not looking for a proper/full fledged 7.1 (or even 5.1) setup. I like the soundbar approach and can live with the cons.

The best that ARC can do is discrete 5.1, just like optical. Neither one, ARC or optical, can send HD audio (DTS-MA, Dolby TrueHD, etc). HD audio does maintain a 5.1 core so if you send the HD audio stream, you should still be able to get the 5.1 depending on the capabilities of the receiver. However, ARC is not without it's issues because of the relationship that it has with CEC.

I don't have any experience with soundbars but they are limited in what they can do in comparison to a standalone receiver, which would be your best choice. There are some high end soundbars (expensive) that are more capable but you'd probably have to check out the soundbar specific forums for what they can, and can not do.

They should've done much more thorough testing. Over the last decade and a half, and using TVs from Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, and Mitsubishi, I have been able to get Dolby Digital 5.1 via Toslink from a Comcast/Xfinity cable box connected to the display via HDMI. This includes models where the manufacturer stated in the manual that this was not possible. If you're using a Comcast/Xfinity cable box, first turn the unit off, then immediately press the MENU button on the STB remote. In the USER SETTINGS MENU, you go into ADDITIONAL HDMI SETTINGS and set AUDIO OUTPUT to PASS THROUGH. Though this will not work with signals from a Blu-Ray player or other similar device connected via HDMI, Dolby Digital from the cablebox is passed by the TV through its optical output to the AVR. The Comcast cable boxes I've used were all either from Pace or from Motorola...it is my understanding that Time Warner boxes do not offer these options for HDMI audio.

They should've done much more thorough testing. Over the last decade and a half, and using TVs from Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, and Mitsubishi, I have been able to get Dolby Digital 5.1 via Toslink from a Comcast/Xfinity cable box connected to the display via HDMI. This includes models where the manufacturer stated in the manual that this was not possible. If you're using a Comcast/Xfinity cable box, first turn the unit off, then immediately press the MENU button on the STB remote. In the USER SETTINGS MENU, you go into ADDITIONAL HDMI SETTINGS and set AUDIO OUTPUT to PASS THROUGH. Though this will not work with signals from a Blu-Ray player or other similar device connected via HDMI, Dolby Digital from the cablebox is passed by the TV through its optical output to the AVR. The Comcast cable boxes I've used were all either from Pace or from Motorola...it is my understanding that Time Warner boxes do not offer these options for HDMI audio.

On my TW 8300 I set it to HDMI audio and 5.1 pass-through went from my Vizio to my receiver with no issues.

Does anyone know if the 2014 LGs ( LB6300 in particular) will send 5.1ch through optical from HDMI source, what about OTA or Netflix or other network source? It seems to be working but I want to confirm somehow.
My Onkyo receiver is showing a DD source light, but I have no idea if the channels are source or some sort of matrixed output.

With this setup, if I set the TV's Audio Output setting to "PCM", I get 48kHz PCM audio just fine. However, when set to "Bitstream" (which I assume is passthrough mode), I get NO audio at the receiver AT ALL. When "Bitstream" is enabled the receiver does detect that a multichannel stream is being provided, but there's no sound.

Note that I don't believe this to be a cable box issue, for two reasons:

- When I run a VIA app like Amazon or Netflix, I see the same problem as above.
- When I bypass the TV and connect the Toslink output from the cable box directly to the receiver, I get multichannel audio just fine.

Unlike many others reporting here, I'm not just getting random or spurious audio dropouts; when set to Multichannel, I get no audio at all, despite the receiver believing it's receiving a Dolby Digital stream. Although I could just use the output from the cable box, that doesn't help when I want to watch something using the built-in VIA apps.

Is anyone else seeing the same thing, and is there a fix/workaround? Thanks very much in advance for any help you all might be able to provide!